Best Buy Furloughs Hourly Employees

National electronics chain Best Buy, which operates eight stores in the Kansas City Metro area, is furloughing 51,000 hourly employees and nearly all of its part-time workers.

The retailer switched to curbside-only business on March 22, due to COVID-19, and halted all in-home service and installation activities. It is retaining about 82 percent of its salaried employees, though top executives have taken pay reductions, and there are also employees furloughed at its corporate headquarters in Minneapolis.

Furloughed employees will retain benefits at no cost for a minimum of three months.

For the nine-week period ended April 4, total sales fell five percent, management reported.